Chapter Text
The car that pulls onto the street is weird. It's clearly new-- a year old, give or take. Red, flashy, and full of idiots if they're driving it here. Jason's eyes track it, even as he pretends to be focused on kicking a piece of trash around. He wouldn't be able to make off with much of it-- it's too obvious, the older guys'll be on it in a flash-- but a hubcap or two might be enough to get food.
But the car rolls to a stop about a block away, and a gawky blond man stumbles out. His hair is just long enough to be in his face, and his clothes are... nice. But not interesting. He looks like an afterthought.
"...when you get it, Valley!" Another man's voice gets louder as he calls out of the car. Raucous laughter, and then the car pulls off.
Valley is left standing there, hunching over, clearly uncomfortable. Now that he's been out for a little longer, Jason can see he's not really that old. Maybe just got out of high school. Probably graduated, too. He looks like a nerd.
Jason suppresses the flare of jealousy-- what does he care what some random asshole has done. Especially a random asshole about to get mugged. Hell, Jason would do it himself, but he sees at least two guys on the street who'd see him do it and just mug him afterwards. Probably beat him up, too, since he should know better.
Valley tucks his hands in his pockets and starts shuffling down the street. His head is down, like a guy walking to his own execution. He's walking Jason's way, though. Jason ducks his own head, trying to look like he's really busy rearranging trash with his feet.
"Um," the guy says. His voice breaks, and he clears his throat. "Kid."
"What?" Jason asks, glaring up and crossing his arms. The guy hunches further at that, which is kinda funny. Only people from outside of Crime Alley are intimidated by an eleven year old.
"Do you know... If there's anywhere to--" Wow, he is struggling. Makes it seem like Jason could push him into a locker like in the movies, even though Jason's half his height. "--to buy stuff. Here."
"There's a bodega two blocks that way." Jason points. "If you've still got your wallet when you get there."
Valley laughs nervously.
"I mean, to buy. Some illegal stuff."
"Like drugs?" Jason wants to ask if he's a cop, but cops don't play it this dumb. Or get dropped off by cars full of laughing men in the middle of Crime Alley.
"...Yeah," Valley says.
“Are you stupid?” Jason asks.
Valley winces at that. Probably thinks something about how some dumb kid shouldn’t be able to talk to him like this. But Jason’s not the one playing dangerous games here.
“Do you know or not?” Valley says, sounding tired and frazzled.
“Why? Need to get high that bad? You itchy?” Jason looks him up and down, but he’s clearly a casual user, if he uses at all.
“No. No, I just want some weed. Come on, kid.” Valley’s hands come out of his pockets, and Jason’s fly up, ready to defend himself. Valley freezes, hands floating in some parody of surrender, before he lifts them higher so that Jason can see there’s nothing inside.
“Sorry,” Valley says.
Jason grimaces at that, wishing his gut instinct hadn’t been to freak out like that-- or to at least grab the switchblade in his pocket before he pulled his hands out. Dumb.
“Why come all the way out here?” Jason hisses, irritated.
“This is the only place in town to get it?” Valley’s voice pitches up at the end in a question, like he already knows he’s about to be told he’s wrong.
“No it fuckin’ ain’t,” Jason scoffs. Now he feels kinda bad for the guy. Does he know nothing about Gotham? Is he not from here? Or is he just from the softest parts-- the places where Jason wouldn’t ever be able to go.
“Oh,” Valley says.
“...You’re gonna get mugged. Come on.” Jason jerks his head impulsively. Mom’s probably asleep this time of day anyway, so she won’t mind. Not that the guy was necessarily gonna follow him. It’d be kind of stupid to follow some random kid. Jason could be baiting him into a quiet place to get robbed, too.
But Valley just looks around nervously and nods.
“Hey,” Jason says as they turn the corner towards his apartment building. Their shoes scuff loudly on the pavement, and he feels the eyes on them. No one’s likely to follow him up since they know where he’s going. Might come by later, see if there’s any sudden windfall, but everyone knows Cathy Todd. Sweet, friendly, sleeping. She’d be happy to help babysit your kid, but you only had a fifty/fifty shot of her being awake when you came to pick up little Joey.
“Yeah?” Valley asks, reminding Jason of what he was gonna ask.
“You got like… ten bucks? Pay me back for keeping you from getting robbed?”
Valley doesn’t even flinch, just looking at Jason with wide eyes behind his round glasses.
“Uh. Yeah, I can do that. Out here?” Looks like Valley’s wised up.
“No. Upstairs.”
“Okay.”
Jason opens the door to the building, heads up the dark concrete stairs. He’s never seen the lights come on out here. Maybe the owners keep the money they’re supposed to spend on bulbs and electricity for their own shit. Jason doesn’t know. He doesn’t care, either.
Valley doesn’t seem to like it, but he hasn’t seemed happy the whole time Jason’s seen him. For obvious reasons.
Jason’s apartment is just three stories up. It doesn’t take that long, and Valley isn’t out of breath when they get up there. Must be an athlete or something. Usually, Jason hears adults huffing and puffing at this point. Maybe Valley just doesn’t smoke? Jason only smokes sometimes, but he notices it’s a little harder to breathe after.
“Here,” Jason says, opening the door-- it’s never locked. Nothing worth stealing inside, and people usually know it.
“Oh. Uh. Is this… Do you have parents?” Valley fumbles through his words.
“Everyone has parents,” Jason answers, because obviously.
Still, he does stop to holler: “Mom, I’m home!”
She doesn’t say anything back, but it seems to make Valley… Jason doesn’t know what it makes him. He can’t really read people that well.
“Ten bucks,” he says instead of worrying about it, holding his hand out.
“I only have a twenty, is that okay?” Valley says.
“...Yeah.” Jason tries not to sound too eager. Seeing Andrew Jackson’s face has never felt so good. Well. Jason has always preferred Benjamin Franklin, of course, but who doesn’t? But Jackson he can actually spend without getting Looks and Trouble.
Jason tucks the bill into his pocket, already thinking about where he’ll hide it until he can spend it.
“You can hide out here for half an hour and then just get a taxi or something. The bus stop’s a few blocks from here, too. But you should wait. There were like five guys waiting for us to finish talking so they could mug you.” Rounded up, but Valley didn’t know that. Jason didn’t want him to ask for his money back.
“Five?” Valley asks, making it clear that Jason had chosen the right number.
“Yeah,” Jason says, picking at his teeth. “Why’d they even drop you here? Do they hate you or something?”
“No,” Valley says, though he doesn’t sound very sure. “Just some new friends from my classes. Said it was my turn to get the weed. They all take turns. You’ve probably seen them around here before.”
“Uh-uh.” Jason shakes his head. “They were fuckin’ with you. If you’re at Gotham U, there’s tons of guys over there who’ll sell you weed. Other stuff too.”
“Should you be swearing?” Valley seems worried about that.
“Mind your own fuckin’ business,” Jason says mildly.
“Okay,” says Valley. And-- “There’s really no one selling drugs near here? That doesn’t seem right.”
“Oh, they’re here. They just won’t sell to you before you get mugged.”
“Huh.” Valley stands awkwardly in the living room, looking around. Jason doesn’t know what he’s looking at. It’s not that interesting. Beat up couch, old TV that gets a few channels when Jason adjusts the rabbit ears just right, a folding card table that holds whatever ends up on it, a painting of a barn in snow that Mom and Dad had gotten before Jason was born that followed them from apartment to apartment.
“Nice place,” Valley says, and Jason can’t tell if he’s being serious or not. Twenty bucks, he tells himself.
“Yeah.”
“Do you… go to school near here?” Valley asks.
“Yeah,” Jason half-lies. He goes sometimes. Hasn’t been in a few months, not since Mom lost her job. She asks him about it, and he lies, and she doesn’t notice. He’s pretty sure she wouldn’t know the month if he asked her. But she’s been feeling better recently. He saw her up for a few hours yesterday. Soon, he’ll be able to go back.
“What’s that like?”
“Fine.”
“Oh. I was homeschooled… sometimes, so I--”
“I don’t care,” Jason cuts him off. He sighs and rubs his small hands through his hair, imitating what he’s seen his dad do when he’s home. “Listen. We’re square. You can just hang here for a little longer. You want the TV on?”
“I don’t watch TV,” Valley says.
“Wh-- Okay. Read a book or something.” Jason goes to the little bookshelf in the corner and pulls the first thing off that he finds there. It’s an old library book, something that they probably owe twenty bucks for by now. He heads back and presses it into Valley’s hands, sends him to the couch.
Valley sits down slowly, holding the book in his hands delicately.
“Is this… fiction?” he asks.
“No, it’s the real story of Fabio and his blonde girlfriend, ” Jason scoffs. Valley pauses and looks down at the cover, really seems to examine the muscular man holding the (blue-eyed) woman on the cover. He frowns and carefully opens the book, like he thinks it’s going to bite him.
“I can’t read this.” He hasn’t even made it to the first page of actual story. And, sure, Jason knows it’s not that good, cause he’s read it, but he doubts Valley has.
“Why?” Jason asks. The guy can clearly read, if he’s in school and that old.
“It’s immoral.”
“And buying drugs ain’t?”
“...It’s a lesser sin.”
“Than reading?” That sounds unbelievable to Jason. Sure, he doesn’t go to church that often, but he doesn’t remember any of the commandments being about reading. Nothing about drugs, either. Valley’s in the clear.
“...That’s just how it is.” Valley closes the book. His hands clutch at it awkwardly. Jason doesn’t get this guy.
“I don’t think you know how anything is,” he says.
“...” Valley doesn’t have anything to say to that. He just sits on Jason’s couch, tense and bizarre-looking in his living room.
“Fine, give me the book so I can read it,” Jason reaches for it. Valley flinches, holds it closer.
“You can’t read this!” He sounds genuinely offended. Huh?
“I already did.”
Valley looks confused, but he doesn’t hand the book over.
“Isn’t this for adults?” he asks.
Jason gives him a flat look, mustering all the exasperation in his body. Valley’s shoulders seem to square at that, and his mouth firms into a line. This is what the guy’s gonna get weird about? Religious nuts are the same every time.
“Let me buy the book from you,” Valley says.
…
And Jason doesn’t want to lose one of his limited pieces of reading material, but more money means more food or maybe even paying the electric bill so that it doesn’t get shut off when the city’s allowed to turn it off again next month. (Winter’s basically over, already, but Jason wants the lights on anyway). The book was free-- or basically free, so.
“...I don’t know,” he says, projecting uncertainty to try and see how much he can get for it. “I really like that book. I don’t wanna lose it for just a couple bucks.”
“Twenty?” Valley offers.
Jason hums, frowning. He looks at the book, then at Valley. It seems like Valley really doesn’t want him to have it. He can probably press a little, especially if Valley meant it when he said he didn’t have any smaller bills.
“Forty,” Valley decides. He pulls the bills from his wallet, which Jason can see now has more than enough to spare. He reconsiders his stance on mugging for a second before taking the bills. Had more money than sense, this guy. And Valley’s still got one hand on the book, finger covering the woman’s cleavage.
“Alright,” Jason agrees, money in hand. “Enjoy.”
“I’m not going to read it.”
“What else would you do with a book? Burn it?”
From the look in Valley’s eyes, he hadn’t considered that an option before, but it’s one he likes. Freak. Jason shakes his head. Whatever, he’s not gonna fight for a book he already sold.
“Anyway,” he says. “It’s probably been long enough. The bus stop is two blocks North, and the taxi stand is the same, but East.”
“...Okay,” Valley says. He stands up, reminding Jason of how tall he is. Jason’s never gonna be that tall, he figures. He has to crane his neck to look up.
“Enjoy the book,” Jason says, leading Valley to the door. Valley passes through easily. The light from the window catches his hair, lighting it up a fiery gold. For a moment, Jason feels something strange. Like he’s looking at an angel in an oversized jean jacket.
And then the feeling fades, and Valley heads down the dark stairwell.